How to Create Infographics for an Effective E-Learning Course?

Written By Manaswita Baanaala

June 16, 2014 // 11:30 AM

Data visualization plays a vital role in developing effective eLearning courses. It helps to draw the learner’s attention to key points and essential information given in the content. But most of us aren’t visual designers and do not possess enough knowledge about the various design elements, fonts, and color schemes.

So in that case how do you create a visual look for an eLearning course? Is there any other possible way to make your course visually rich and convey information in an easily understandable way? One of the effective ways to do this is by making use of INFOGRAPHICS. The learner’s attention can be drawn significantly through visuals, which are processed faster than the TEXT.

Here I have tried to focus on some important elements of an infographic, which helps to make your eLearning course visually rich than ever.

Content Analysis

Analyzing content helps in deciding the present the information in an appropriate way. The content type in eLearning varies between courses and content can be in the form of facts, procedures, principles, etc.

Presenting too much text on a single slide or presenting it in repeated presentation patterns fails to keep the learner focused on the course.

On the other hand, analyzing the given content and deciding upon the presentation patterns makes your eLearning course visually rich.

Create a persuasive title

Divide content into set of blocks

Present key information in bulleted list

Make the content short and simple

Highlight keywords/phrases

Present Need to know information

Give a conclusion/summary

Content Visualization

We all know that a picture is worth 100 words. Infographics present content in different ways with the use of visuals and graphics. As a result, learners find it easy to assimilate the presented information quickly.

The same set of DATA can be presented differently by using infographics using different visualization patterns.

Select a suitable theme for the info graphic from a list and ensure that it is relevant to the given context. Select an appropriate color scheme and font to present a visually rich content and make sure that you have appropriate imagery and graphics, which make your infographic visually appealing. Charts and graphs are more often used to present statistical or historical data because they convey the data effectively.

Here is an example for an infographic that shows the adult learning principles. As it deals with the learning principles, the most important points about the principles have to be covered. First, the heavy content was divided into chunks of data and kept in a logical flow. The content was placed in four blocks and supported with the vector images and iconic representation.

Every block consists of one appropriate title and kept in bold in order to convey the information very clearly. Finally, a persuasive title “Adult Learning Principles “was set – a title that matches to the entire content.

There are so many tools/applications available to create infographics quickly. You have web-based info graphic software like Piktochart, which has readymade themes and icons; you can also design in tools like Photoshop and Flash.

An eLearning course that is not visually appealing may not be welcome among the learners. Making use of infographics can really enhance the course content and this is sure to open up more opportunities for the learners to engage with the course materials. Isn’t it?

About CommLab India

CommLab India addresses the learning and development needs of major organizations through its custom and rapid e-learning solutions, translations and mobile learning services. Since 2000, we have been offering technology-enabled solutions to accelerate workforce performance.

Our interactive online courses employ the best training strategies such as microlearning, game-based learning, and videos and are developed using the latest authoring tools. Read More